ABSTRACT
History dominates political perspectives in Turkey in a way in which it does not in advanced industrial societies in the West. The pre-eminent emphasis, in political speeches and newspapers as well as in school textbooks, is given to the Turkish State and the need to maintain its unity and authority. During the early years of the Republic, the non-European ‘oriental’ and ‘Islamic’ features of Ottoman society were usually singled out as responsible for the decline of the Empire. Turkey’s isolationist economic policies since 1928 are a reaction against experiences of the previous century, a reaction common to both left and right. Representative forms of government have been associated with the drive for modernity in Turkey since the late 1870s. Since 1946, largely because of Turkey’s alignment with the United States and the West, competition between political parties and free general elections have been regarded as the essential basis of the Grand National Assembly.
